Gamification Makes Homeschool Education Fun
Homeschooling has become one of the fastest growing forms of education, and gamification has become very integral to the way these children are learning.
When a parent decides to remove their child from school, many times it’s due to the boring nature of traditional classrooms, inflexible schedules, and just a general disagreement with the American education system.
But what does a homeschooling parent do with their children once they have them home? There are hundreds of curriculums to choose from, some barely any different than what the school offered, others so labor intensive the parent can’t keep up. And then there’s the not-so-small matter of getting kids to actually participate in these programs.
Once answer coming up more and more is gamification. Take a look at Reading Eggs. This is a simple web-based program designed to help young kids learn how to read. The game is set around a map. Each place on the map is a different lesson. For each lesson they master, they get points. Once they get through the map, they get a certificate and a new map gets unlocked.
Another very popular tool for homeschool families is Khan Academy. This website is filled with videos on a huge variety of subjects. Students learn from these instructional videos and can take tests to check their retention. They get points and badges to measure their progress. A map of the “stars” shows what they’ve done and what’s suggested for them.
Other homeschool families are gamifying their whole homeschool. Imagine how excited a child would be to find their entire learning area turned into one giant game? It’s an excellent way to highlight how fun education can be and get the kids fired up about “doing” school.
Another large area where we’re seeing games in education is in the world of apps for mobile devices. The Apps for Homeschooling website is just one of many that list and recommend apps for parents to choose from. A quick review of popular apps shows many are game based learning programs. Homeschoolers are out and about, and this is great for on-the-go learning.
A look at any homeschooling forum will show exactly how much time is spent discussing and recommending gamification type tools for learning. It is clear that these two growing methods of educating our youth are highly compatible and something we’ll only see more of in years to come.
Flickr Image by akraba
But are these games social enough?
Good idea, in general, but what about socializing?
No curricula is “social”. Homeschoolers get social activities by doing things in their communities, homeschool co-ops, classes like Gymnastics or dance, church groups, community service, scouting, field trips groups, play groups etc.